


To Make the End of Battle

by The_Exile



Category: Dragon Force
Genre: Endgame, F/M, Junon victory, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 11:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3766699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The final battle against Madruk is looming, the Dragon Warriors are running out of time to recover the artifacts from the three shrines and the Apostles of Madruk have been sent to stop them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preparations

The eight warriors of the Dragon Force went their separate ways and began the long journey to the three shrines, reliquaries of the legendary weapons they were destined to inherit. Each of the continent's monarchs knew that obtaining the sacred relics would not be easy. There would almost certainly be some kind of trial or ordeal, and most likely a fierce battle ahead of them. There was always a battle, these days. The forces of the dark God Madruk would be heading out to stop them too. It had taken the scholars of their respective nations three days to decipher the words of the prophecy recited to them by Frest, and Madruk's servants always seemed to know what was happening before they did, so they were probably there already.

The prophecy's wording hadn't been all that complicated, really. They all had specific places to be, with specific people, at specific times, if they had any hope of gaining the power to defeat Madruk. Part of the problem was that, even when they thought they understood their instructions clearly, none of them wanted to believe it was true. Commandments handed down by the apostles of a Goddess weren't known to take into account their convenience to those who had to act on them. When a matter concerned the roles of certain key individuals in a cycle of fate that would recur endlessly until the stars themselves faded out, it was impossible to predict the situations of a particular set of heroes at any one point in time. 

It could easily have been a lot worse: they were fortunate that one of them hadn't already died, or been possessed by Madruk, as had been the fate of the last generation's chosen Dragon Warriors only the day before their final battle. In the case of Goldark, it was a very close call indeed. He had worked alongside Scythe and Gaul to further his own ends throughout most of the campaign, resulting in the deaths of many people that the other Dragon Warriors had cared about, even though he had never quite fallen into total corruption. Even now that it had been revealed to everyone that Goldark bore the Dragon Crest and was fated to join them in their final clash with Madruk, Junon was still tempted every now and then to kill the crazy-eyed old tyrant. If they hadn't ended up murdering each other, that would have left two people in the same party who were both likely to pick up the cursed sword Eclisis if left unsupervised. Destiny had at least spared them the delicate situation of having Junon and Goldark alone together in the same party. Of course, that didn't meant Wein and Goldark together were almost as bad. At least Goldark hadn't tried to murder Junon in return, as he had almost killed Wein during a duel. The other combinations were equally similar to ticking time bombs in all sorts of wonderful ways, most of them involving one party member fiercely loving or hating another in a way that would distract them during a critical moment of the fight at best, or cause an outright inter-party riot at worst. Actually, Reinhart mused, both possibilities were likely to get someone killed, so they were both as bad as each other.

Maybe it was only inevitable that they would harbour extreme emotions towards each other after a campaign as long, arduous and extreme in its changing fortunes as that of the battle against Madruk. After so many years of constant warring, a time of emotional turmoil to match the political chaos, of crushing defeat that could be announced moments after what seemed like a decisive victory, all the times they had trusted each other with their lives even though they had betrayed or even outright warred against each other the day before, they could not avoid forging some kind of strong bonds with each other.

Teiris, Reinhart and Gongos had set off south, towards Bozack's Forest Shrine, where the Moon Bracelet was being held. Mikhal, Leon and Junon headed east to the Shrine of the Moon, on the coast of the Palemoon Kingdom. Wein and Goldark travelled to the far North to the Snow Shrine of Tristan, aptly named for being on the highest peaks of Tristan's icy mountains. Teiris later commented that she didn't understand why she couldn't have been destined to return to her own Kingdom, rather than a band of people who mostly didn't live even remotely near Palemoon, especially Mikhal. Her personal opinion was that the whole 'prophecy' was an elaborate prank by Frest and Ramda to force everyone to go on long journeys to pick out the items they had hidden at opposite ends of the continent on purpose for their amusement. Upon looking at the shrines' exact locations on the map, Junon had to agree. 

They tried to set off simultaneously to lessen the travel time but it didn't work. For one thing, Junon had only found out about the new turn of events when she had returned from Frest's Tower, where she had been on a mission alone while ordering the other Dragon Warriors to station themselves in other castles around Legendra to counter any possible uprising of the Skull Children. They had been forced to waste time meeting up again just so they could organise themselves into the correct parties and head straight back out again. After that, the journeys hadn't taken equal lengths of time, the shores of Palemoon being easier terrain to negotiate than the dense jungles of Bozack or the treacherous mountain paths of Tristan. Lastly, Junon had deliberately hung back to double-check that everything was set up to run smoothly in their absence. The black-armoured Empress was nominally in charge due to being the strongest fighter and the victor of the war that would hopefully soon be over. This made her personally responsible for everything that could, and probably would, possibly go wrong as soon as she turned her back on it. 

She suspected that the part of their campaign destined to go horribly wrong was yet to come.


	2. Sparring Practice with Reinhart

"Teiris, desperately flailing around with a staff while looking in the other direction is not a legitimate battle tactic!" 

Reinhart sighed and leaned over to adjust the Elf Queen's arms, gently restraining her to prevent the haphazard windmilling at some target that he assumed was supposed to be in the sky somewhere. He turned her head to face the target and showed her how to adopt a martial stance less likely to result in her tripping over her own feet. 

"Now you can actually see the enemy. Despite our prodigious magical talent, and I honestly believe your powers are equal to my own, we cannot actually will the enemy to stop existing by pretending we can't see them."

"I was just protecting my face!" she complained, spinning her levitating cloak that had accidentally changed direction to face her, despite it not actually being attached to her body or the rest of her clothes, "I get distracted by all the noise and the flames and things going on really fast everywhere!" 

Patiently and calmly as he could manage, Reinhart replied, "Then use a magical barrier to protect your face. Make it capable of dampening light and sound. You could even use it to blinker your vision, although I wouldn't recommend it, if you want to avoid being attacked from a direction you can't see in. You have enough power to make your shield omnidirectional and still strong enough to resist a dragon's claws, though. We mages use our powers to compensate for every weakness. It's our most useful tool."

"Magical barriers. I... I can do those. Well, unless something distracts me and makes me jump. I..." Teiris looked down at her feet, "I really don't like fighting. I know I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. I'm sorry..."

"Nobody gets used to war and stays sane, Teiris. Even I would rather the fighting ended and I'm directly descended from a God of War," Reinhart looked like a young boy, even younger than Wein, but he was probably older than Goldark. Teiris knew that she, too, would outlive the rest of the Dragon Force and still look youthful, although not quite to the extent as a divine scion.

"I just worry I'm not useful around here!" Teiris told him, her arms shaking and causing the windmilling effect again. The three elemental orbs that hung above her head also wobbled as though she had been balancing them on a pole, their colours blurring as they spun a few times then returned to their places. Reinhart held out a hand to stop her falling over.

"Nonsense, you've achieved a lot! You persuaded Wein to join us without any bloodshed. Your Kingdom is the most socially progressive. You invented the floaty cloak and those globe things..." 

Suddenly, a half-feral bellow erupted from the nearby forest, followed by crunching branches and loudly stomping footsteps. 

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY WIFE?" Gongos demanded, leaping forwards from the other side of the clearing in one bound. Reinhart had to teleport to get out of the way in time before the King of the Beastmen landed on him and flattened him. Teiris blushed and turned her head away from him, reverting to her favourite tactic of abject denial.

"Oh, hi, Gongos! We were just having some sparring sessions!" said Reinhart.

"I'm not his wife," Teiris muttered, barely able to speak from embarrassment.

"What do puny child-bodied men know about fighting? Gongos will teach you how to fight!" the Beastman declared, crouching into a stance like a jungle cat about to pounce on its prey while reaching for the axe at his belt.

"Please don't break anything!" said Teiris, "Reinhart was teaching me because he's also a mage! I can't fight like a Beastman!"

"That is right! Because the Elf Maiden is a delicate and beautiful flower! Gongos must fight to protect her! Yes!" he declared to nobody in particular. 

"I'm not a Maid... I mean, I'm not as delicate as you think!" she said, blushing even harder as she realised what she had almost accidentally said. 

"All of us has to train hard and obtain as much experience as we can. We each have our own role to play and we can't count on fate not to force us apart at the least opportune moment! It's already happened several times!" Reinhart said, realising as soon as the words left his mouth that such advanced reasoning was lost on the Beastman.

"Silence, child-man! You know nothing of the burning passion that drives Gongos to protect his Queen!" he said, "When has Reinhart ever known true love? Can his child body even..."

"No need to get personal about it," said Reinhart, rolling his eyes. Teiris thought she saw him wince and wondered if Gongos had genuinely hit a nerve. She had never heard him talk about someone he loved, either, although he never said there wasn't anyone. For that matter, Reinhart was the Dragon Warrior she knew the least about. Even Goldark had told her a little of his past and the people dear to him. For all she knew, Reinhart might pop up to the divine realm and visit his dad with a pile of dirty laundry every night after she went to sleep.

"Do not bother to associate with the strange baby-faced one! He cannot give you lots and lots of babies!" declared Gongos. He smelled bad, even for Gongos. Teiris wondered if he had been out hunting again and, if so, where was their dinner?

"Gongos... can Elves and Beastmen even have babies?" Reinhart asked.

"Of course Gongos and Teiris can have babies! We love each other!"

"How do you know for certain your species can cross-breed? Has there ever been a precedent for it?"

"An Elf Queen and a Beastmen have been married before!"

"Yes, but not all marriages result in babies, you know."

"They don't?" Gongos looked puzzled, which made him look like a startled squirrel, "Um... I mean... Gongos is different because Gongos is the greatest Beastman ever in history! Besides, the same goes for Reinhart!"

"I... what does this have to do with... I don't even want..." Reinhart sighed, threw up his hands in defeat and teleported out of the clearing entirely. 

"For a mage, that boy is very stupid, yes," commented Gongos. When no reply came, he spun around and glared behind him. It was the first time he realised that Teiris hadn't actually been there for a while. His expression changed to mild panic, “Wait, Gongos has a delicious wild boar for you! Oh well, he will have to eat it himself.”


	3. Immortals

"Thinking about Reinhart again?" asked Gigg. The blue-scaled dragon-man's low sibilant growl of a voice interrupted Uryll's train of thought. For anyone else, she would have ignored them and maybe thrown a warning fireball at them to scare them off, but she was supposed to be co-operating with Gigg and Bardal to defend Legendra while the Dragon Warriors were away. As the strongest warriors by a wide margin, she and Gigg had been put in charge of the roaming patrol, while Bardal was expected to take care of the tactical decisions and give magical support. Uryll didn't want to disobey an order from Reinhart and didn't dare defy the terrifying Empress in the black spiked armour who had even defeated Reinhart in battle. 

"Well... as a matter of fact, yes. Since when did dragons develop telepathy?" she stared at him suspiciously.

"It's not that hard to work out. Reinhart's not here. He's probably in danger. So you're probably worried about him," he jumped up onto the balcony to perch alongside her. She had been watching the stars of Legendra's night sky from the topmost balcony of Tradnor Palace. She noticed that Gigg was carrying a large wooden tankard of beer. He didn't sound inebriated - she didn't think a beverage existed that could get a dragon drunk - but she supposed it must affect them in some way, or they wouldn't drink it, and she hoped he wouldn't fall off his perch or fly into anything.

"Are you worried about him?"

"Only in a 'if he fails, the entire world will end' sort of way," he said, "I came up here to escape from Bardal's singing, to be honest. I don't understand why humans like it. The tavern's packed with people, and human taverns are far too small with low ceilings, so I don't like it there when it's crowded. And Sophie makes that stupid face at him..."

"Today's when they're scheduled to arrive," said Uryll, "I wonder if it's going to plan? I don't even understand what exactly they're doing at the shrines..."

"I don't think they know what's going to happen either," said Gigg, "Probably fighting. It's always fighting."

"You don't sound impressed. I thought dragonmen liked fighting."

"Dragonmen like proper taverns. I'm going to build one when the fighting is over. I've been helping out with all the castle reinforcement as practice," said Gigg, "You really like Reinhart, don't you? Don't worry, it's not obvious. I only know because we've always hung out in a group, us renegade immortals. And we know there's a real reason why you decided to leave Madruk's army instead of betraying Reinhart, not just the lousy excuse you made up."

"You didn't... see us, did you?"

"Me? I don't spy on Succubi when they're busy. Well, not very often."

"You don't think it's weird for an immortal to love someone who isn't one of us?"

"If it was a mortal, yeah, but Reinhart isn't really a mundane human being, is he? I don't know where he fits in. I don't know what to think," he said, "Besides, it's none of my business."

"He certainly is something special," Uryll sighed, "I mean, he looks like a ten-year-old kid, but he managed to turn a Succubus' seduction attempt on its ass."

"He's at least part God. I wouldn't feel it's any reflection on your professional skills."

"I don't want to seduce people any more, anyway. Well, maybe only a few people every now and then."

Suddenly, Gigg broke off from what he was about to say and stared straight up at a point far into the sky, his nostrils flaring up as though he had the scent of something. Uryll gave him a questioning look.

“Dragonmen,” said Gigg, a distant tone to his voice. 

“Didn't we deal with Zado already? Maybe you're just smelling the regular dragons...”

“The difference is really obvious, and I don't want a large force of regular dragons invading either. They're not here, not yet, but I can feel their presence stronger than I usually can. I think the barrier's getting too weak.”

“Oh, now what? Doesn't anything go right any more?” the Succubus sighed, “Should we mobilise now, or...?”

“I'll go have a scout around,” said Gigg, putting his tankard down on the wall and throwing his arms back. His wings stretched out and he lifted off into the air. His tail snagged onto the tankard and accidentally knocked it flying off the balcony; compared to most things that could fly, Gigg wasn't the greatest flyer ever. He yelled down, “If the dragonmen are really coming back, we're in big trouble. I don't want to panic everyone, but we need to be prepared for even worse fighting than usual.”

“I'll go mobilise the Samurai. They don't need to know why, they're just the strongest troops available and I'm just taking precautions against something going wrong this close to the final battle,” she said, “We should tell Sophie and Bardal, though.”

“Don't tell Bardal. The last time I told him something was a military secret, he wrote a ten-chapter sonnet about it for a girl he met in the tavern.”

“I guess he doesn't need to know that badly,” Uryll shrugged. Gigg flew off out of sight, leaving Uryll to continue staring out at the stars, now more sinister-looking, wondering if Reinhart knew about the dragonmen yet and whether she should bother picking up the tankard.


	4. Portents in the Skies

From atop the rocks that lined the beach, Junon stared uneasily out at the roiling storm clouds and the fierce tidal waves of the turbulent seas, her mouth creased into a frown. The wind howled, whipping up a fine spray of salt water around her. She wished she still wore her mask, if only to keep the rain out of her eyes. Even though it restricted visibility itself, she was used to the sensation, so it was easier to ignore than the unusually cold weather that pinched her face. 

She could not put her mask back on now, though - it was a symbol of something she had now promised to forswear, of something she no longer really represented. She had once made an oath not to remove the black death mask until she had avenged her father. Technically she had defeated the person who had landed the blow, but, like everything else, it had turned out to be complicated, and she was no longer in a situation where she could live her life only for vengeance, where she could let her thoughts be of retribution and slaughter. It would only make her open to possession by Madruk. Besides, the strong emotions were probably clouding her judgment in battle, and she was too experienced a warrior to lack discipline in such a way. Her mind wasn't as centred as Mikhal's, but she had no idea how he remained so calm all the time. The Samurai Lord had been teaching her how to calm herself through meditation, as well as his technique to win duels that seemed to involve drawing his sword impossibly fast, whenever they had a spare moment, but she knew she would never match the skill of someone who had trained since birth. The techniques she learned were taking the edge off her black rages, the famous Tristan dynasty temperament, and keeping her away from that borderline where she started to open her mind to the constant threat of demonic possession.

The appalling weather wasn't really a major problem for her - she had grown up in a place with much worse climate than this, although she had never really been able to go down to the beach and watch the sea. Tristan's shores were ringed with sheer cliffs that made it easily defensible but nearly impossible to climb down to reach the sea. Tunnels had been mined to send fishing boats, but they kept flooding and killing people, or being used by invading armies. Watching the sea would have been an interesting novelty had the weather not been so foul and the atmosphere so ominous. It felt as though the heavy grey clouds were about to part and something malevolent to force their way down from a realm beyond the skies. She felt she had to watch them, just in case, and she had to pull her eyes away from them when she wanted to look at anything else. 

She still remembered the last time something had dropped out of the skies, a bizarre monstrosity that was more like a living machine that commanded itself than a monster, made of black metal the same as her heavy spiked armour. It had been impossible to kill by any mundane or magical means, even for the Dragon Warriors. It had taken a similar impossibility, a Dragon Warrior of the previous generation who somehow lived partly in another dimension, to damage it, and then they weren't sure if it had been totally destroyed. If more of the otherworldly machines existed, she would have no way to defend herself against them. She didn't even know what they were. Everything else that had happened made some kind of sense, even though it was terrible, but something about Katmando's absolutely alien nature made her shiver more than even the most grotesque of Madruk's demons.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Leon was behind her. She flinched. The monk always pestered her when he saw that she was frowning. He claimed not to like her frowning because it ruined the beauty of her face. Every time he used that line, or any of its variants, it made her grit her teeth to avoid thumping him. Not only was she incensed that he didn't find her beautiful when she was frowning - if he loved her as much as he claimed, he would accept her however she might choose to appear or whatever else she chose to do – but she suspected he wanted to turn her into some kind of idiot girl who smiled vapidly all the time, no doubt because all she could think about was how much she adored him. Only an idiot or a lunatic could keep on smiling when the world was bordering upon the Apocalypse, especially when they were personally responsible for stopping it happening. She had an important role in a great destiny and she had to be respectful of this by acting appropriately. She deliberately glowered at him in what she hoped was an expression of grim determination, hoping that she could lead by example and eventually get through to him.

“Watching the skies,” she told him, “I don't like them.”

“There's definitely a disturbance in the spiritual balance around here. Mikhal can feel it too,” said Leon. Junon couldn't sense anything spiritual or magical. She had no training in religion or magic beyond some useful spells for doing large amounts of damage on the battlefield. She just had quite a good gut instinct about danger. He added, “We can't let it distract us from our goal though. If anything, it's a sign that we're running out of time.”

“It's probably headed straight for us anyway.”

“Well, if that's so, we'll be prepared for it. Together, we can fight anything!”

“Just don't distract me,” said Junon, before turning on her heel and storming off.


	5. Dragon Battle

Even though he was only halfway up the mountain path, Wein was the first to encounter the enemy. He only noticed them, milling around on the ledge above, when his own dragon troops became restless to the point of panic, some trying to flee back down the mountain, some randomly becoming aggressive. Wein squinted against the sun's harsh glare on the snow to see what they were all staring at and he understood immediately. 

He hadn't seen feral dragonmen before. He had been given second-hand accounts of them by Junon and Vangal, even listened to a particularly evocative retelling by Bardal, but even the bard's masterful storytelling couldn't prepare him for the terror. Their appearance wasn't all that different from that of Gigg or Vangal, if a little rougher around the edges with a fashion sense that hadn't been brought up to date, but the looks on their faces were what really unnerved the young Prince. Stark, wild madness gleamed in their red-pupilled eyes, somewhere in-between a rabid dog and Goldark on a bad day. Their expressions were savage, brutal, barely showing signs of intelligence or even purpose beyond a primal cunning in battle and an obsessive need to slaughter and burn anything they came across, an overarching hatred of all living things in Legendra. Wein remembered Vangal's tale of how his race had been created by Harsgalt as agents to carry out the original purpose of the Destroyer Gods, to end the existence of anything that had reached its time, animals, humans, entire stars alike, in preparation for new growth. When Madruk had betrayed the rest of the Gods and upset the celestial balance, the dragonmen under his command had also been perverted, their once logical purpose warped into total destruction of everything in the Universe. Wein had also been told that there shouldn't be any more in the world, that Harsgalt had sealed them away when he knew of their corruption, that Zado, as the strongest dragonman, was the only one capable of escaping. Now there was another dragonman directly in his path, leading a horde of lesser dragons, tracking the scent of something while idly butchering anything in their path. Looking for him, he guessed, or Dragon Warriors in general. Goldark had warned him that Madruk almost certainly knew where he was going, and would probably send Gaul, Scythe and any other forces of darkness they didn't know about yet. He had been right, in the usual way he seemed to know more about the situation than anyone else, and now Wein couldn't avoid a confrontation with the dragonman who was directly in his path, the only path he could take up to the place that destiny itself had told him he had to visit. 

He drew his broadsword and ordered the charge. At least he would have the initiative, if not the actual upper hand in this battle. That Junon had given him dragon troops would at least give him a fighting chance but the enemy had the higher ground, better manoeuvrability and Wein had no idea how powerful the dragonman would be. He had been ordered to stay out of the last fight between dragonmen entirely, that it wasn't for mortals. Now he had no choice in the matter. 

The front lines met each other, the enemy pouring down the cliff to meet Wein's own dragons in a wave of green scales, flapping wings, slashing claws and berserk roaring. Order was soon lost as the fighting began, both troops used to a brutal melee with no space for laws or mercy. Dragon blood sprayed as razor-sharp claws and carnivore's teeth sliced through scales, fiery breath melted the snow, the roars came to a fever pitch. If it wasn't for the fact that the clan Wein hired had different colour scales, he would have no way of telling his own troops apart from the enemy, they were just a shifting blur of madness. Wein had given up trying to have any more input into the battle - he had lost confidence in his ability to inspire morale when Junon told him that his Holy Sacred Banner of Righteousness just looked like a white flag to normal people - so he began focussing his energy internally, tapping the reserves of magic inside him in preparation for a Sword Rush technique. He would have a clear shot of the enemy General, as none of their troops were even vaguely interested in attacking him, when they had other dragons to rip apart.

It was then that he noticed the one critical flaw ,in the plan: the General wasn't standing on the other side of the battlefield any more. The enormous green dragonman was above him, about to land on him. Dragonmen jumped by curling up into a ball of spikes, like a hedgehog would if Madruk had invented hedgehogs, and it generally felt like you had been hit by a giant spiked cannonball. Wein managed to keep hold of his sword as he was launched off his feet and slammed into the nearest rock. He was fortunate there hadn't been a cliff ledge there, although this was still a bad place to be - there was nowhere to retreat to, and he had a gut feeling that he might not win this battle. Wein even managed to keep the sword pointed roughly at the dragonman, who had now uncurled and was advancing on him with bloodstained claws extended. 

The roars grew louder as the main battle found its way towards the two commanders. Through vision that was now blurry, Wein counted a lot less of his own troops than the enemy's. His heart sank. He had been counting on his dragons, who slightly outnumbered the enemy, to deal with the main bulk of the troops. Now he was going to have to fight the remnants of a dragon army as well as a dragonman, and he could barely stand upright. At least it would be an honourable death. He would rather have an honourable death a little later on, though, when it wouldn't lead to the destruction of the world.

His swirling senses picked up another sound, a different kind of roar, as the heads of the dragons turned and their leader was bowled over by something that then stabbed the dragonman again and again with a pair of swords, still bellowing. It wasn't the roar of a dragon, but of a lion. A very angry and slightly deranged lion.

"Goldark?" he muttered. He hadn't seen Goldark for a while. It only just occurred to him to be worried about this. The old madman might have been plotting against him.

Goldark fought like a man possessed, and although the dragonman's claws caught him several times, slicing straight through his plate mail and leaving deep gashes across his chest and arms, he didn't let go until the enemy General thrashed and stopped moving. There was no point in even trying to take a feral dragonman alive; it would be like trying to capture Gaul or Scythe. Snarling as he tried to get his breath back, Goldark stood up and wiped the blood off his blades. Every other part of him was covered in both draconic ichor and a considerable amount of his own blood. He inspected Wein with an impassive gaze.

"We're both fine. We need to keep going," he reported, "More will join that one."

"Where in Astea's name did you go off to?"

"I had urgent business to take care of. Pardon me for not expecting the King of the Highlands to be able to take care of himself in battle."

"You had business more urgent than the battle to save Legendra?"

"Oh, it was very much related," said Goldark, "I happen to know who our opponent will be, once we get to the shrine. I needed to go and check for myself. It was personal business."

"Gaul and Scythe?" asked Wein.

He shook his head, "I'm fairly sure they're on the move as well, though. They've probably gone after the others. It's too late to warn them. This whole plan to split off into three groups is just a liability."

"Just tell me who it is I have to fight," said Wein.

"I'm fighting him. I told you, this is a personal matter," said Goldark, "It's my brother."

"The one you stabbed in the back?"

"I didn't stab him in the back, I was in front of him when I stabbed him," said Goldark, "And if you don't think he deserved it, you don't understand a thing about him."

"He locked you in a dungeon because you were crazy."

"He locked me in a dungeon so I couldn't challenge the way he was running the Empire!" snapped Goldark, "Back then I didn't know about Gaul or Scythe - but the way he was acting, I thought he was possessed by a demon even before I discovered he actually was. And there wasn't anything I could do about it rotting in a cell. Your father's death - the assassins sent after Junon - it was all my brother's work."

"If this is true, why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Because anyone could come up with that excuse, and because I was trying to convince Gaul and Scythe I was the same as my brother, under their complete control. The two of them don't even fully realise I'm working for you. That's how I've been able to sneak around so much. There's no point in carrying on the deception now that my brother is back from the dead. And, if Gaul and Scythe are going after the others, I think this might be the last time I see them. This is going to be the decisive battle. Either they'll both be killed, or the others will die, and we'll die soon after."

"You're good at raising morale, do you know that?" Wein raised an eyebrow at him, "Doesn't it bother you at all that someone you know to be dead has mysteriously come back to life?"

"It wouldn't be the first time. This is the Apocalypse. The dead are going to rise from their graves," said Goldark, his face looking even more grim than usual, "Although, it is a very evil world, where things still influence the Earth that should have been lain to rest."

"Goldark?" Wein thought he heard a hint of genuine sadness in the man's voice. Anyone would grieve at the death of their brother, Wein mused, and it sounded like the whole story had happened in the worst way possible. Madruk had destroyed another life.

"Let's get going," he replied, sheathing his swords and pulling himself up onto a low-hanging mountain ledge. How come an old man in heavy armour climb so much better than Wein could? Was Wein just exceptionally bad at climbing? But then, Goldark seemed like the sort of man who looked much older than his years, his hair whitened and his face wrinkled by a life of too many burdens, one that mostly just had to be endured. For some reason, Wein couldn't stop staring at Goldark's back, which was mostly breastplate, and silently trying to work out the Emperor's entire story, wondering what had happened in his life to produce someone that strong. Once, the man whipped his head around and glared at him, which caused his cheeks to burn. He couldn't shake the terror that Goldark might know that he was obsessively thinking about him, take offense, and cause some kind of diplomatic incident. The Emperor of Fandaria just blinked, shook his head, turned around and carried on climbing.

"Thank you for saving my life in that battle," Wein said suddenly, "I am in your debt."

"I owe you all. Consider the debt cleared," said Goldark, and that was that.


	6. Teiris' War

It was only when Teiris turned around that she realised she was the only one left facing Scythe.

Since they entered the dense, lush forests of the Bozack Nation, there had been problems keeping track of everything that had been going on in the battle. While Gongos was doing his best to protect her, Teiris was no use whatsoever at woodland tracking, so things kept jumping out at her from behind trees when she hadn't even spotted the trees yet, they were so well hidden behind other trees. Reinhart had suggested scrying but it took too long to be used immediately and was impractical to keep running all the time, because the contents of the bowl kept spilling out. Everyone in the party seemed to think she had some kind of magical Elf senses but it had been centuries since Elves lived in the woods, they had more civilised towns than the humans these days, so they had lost the instincts that the other fey races still possessed. 

She was aware there had been dragons. They were a little difficult to miss once they actually started fighting, especially with other dragons. Junon had given them dragon troops, which Teiris hoped would compensate for her own lack of skill in battle. At least she was good at keeping troops loyal to her, although the huge dragons kept blocking her view of the battlefield and, being no good at climbing trees, she had no way of gaining higher ground. She still didn't understand why she couldn't have gone to her homeland, where she was better at fighting and where it would be more sensible for her destiny to lie. But now she was stuck in the middle of a creepy forest where she was probably lost and there were dragons attacking her. When she turned around to yell out for Reinhart and Gongos, the pandemonium had already begun and she realised they were close by and had already been engaged in battle. Relief flowed through her when she saw the dragons leave, pursuing the Beast King who was swinging upside down from the trees and bellowing at the top of his voice, and the God-Child who was demonstrating his complete lack of innocence or piety with a series of taunts that made her blush. Then, just as she was about to order her troops to go and assist the others in battle while she started pouring all her magic into a shield spell, she heard the sadistic mocking laughter of Scythe, Madruk's most deadly General.

Teiris shuddered and forced herself not to look away. Those dragons were lead by Dragonmen, impossible as it should be that so many of them were back in the world, and it would be a harrowing battle for them. They almost certainly wouldn't have the strength to fight a near-immortal Dark Apostle straight afterwards, assuming that Scythe actually observed the code of war rather than ambushing them while they were weak. It was up to Teiris to keep Scythe away from the battle.

Deciding to make her shield spell stronger than she had intended, she slowed her breathing to calm herself down as Reinhart had taught her. She willed herself to focus only on the enemy. With a single command, her dragons were rallied around her. As the leader of a small army of giant, scaled, winged beasts, she felt a lot more confident.

"H...hey there!" she yelled, realising how bad her taunt was as soon as it came out of her mouth, "W... what are you doing over there? Didn't Laine tell you that it's a hideous fashion crime to wear those colours against a green background?"

She replied with a loud, humourless cackle, "Don't worry, it's all going to be in flames soon enough!"

"Well, it's still several centuries out of fashion! And it doesn't suit you!" she said, "You need something more suitable for a mature lady with your generous figure!" 

"How dare you! You'll be dancing to a different tune when I destroy the entire world for the glory of Lord Madruk!" she shrieked. It wasn't actually that difficult to rile Scythe. Unlike Gaul, she was actually capable of something resembling human emotion. The Dark Apostle screamed the order to charge at the top of her voice, inspiring the zombies to lope towards her at a rolling shuffle. Zombies had their own unique way of attempting to move fast and, like the fact that they were up and walking in the first place, it was terrifyingly unnatural. They stank of the grave, too. Don't look away, Teiris told herself sternly.

The Undead charge met the wall of dragons at the other side of the battlefield and the two began tearing each other apart, trying their best to devour each other on instinct even though dragons couldn't actually eat zombies without getting sick. To Teiris' relief, Scythe's zombies weren't actually doing all that well. Dragons had always been stronger - they were stronger than pretty much everyone in Legendra - but the zombies just seemed weaker than usual, slower and less co-ordinated, some of them even spontaneously deanimating and crumbling into dust where they fell. The Shrine was closer than they thought, Teiris realised as she sensed a strong aura of holy magic. Its divine aura was interfering with the vile necromancy that kept the zombies together. The decision to bring zombies was a bad move on Scythe's part. It was probably meant to sap her morale. Scythe was obsessed with putting on a good show and nothing was quiet as appropriately terrifying for a Dark Apostle as a horde of shambling Undead monstrosities.

Noticing that her forces were dwindling, Scythe began raising them again. The dark magic pouring from her hands sickened Teiris. Scythe's aura, and that of the zombies who rose from the bloodstained undergrowth, was the same pallid grey as their rotting flesh. The flow of energy she commanded was near endless, though, and Teiris realised that the zombies would keep coming, wear her down slowly and inevitably. She ordered the main bulk of the dragons to push forwards, keeping only a small force surrounding her. She could see the faces of the zombies now, and she knew that she would have to fight at least one of them face to face.

Two of the three zombies heading straight for her were taken down by the dragons who had stepped in to protect her but the one in the center darted forwards and slipped out of the fray. Suddenly, she was staring right into its empty eye sockets. Its fetid stench was almost enough to break her concentration. She focussed on the elemental orbs above her head and brought them together before throwing them forwards to slam into the zombie. The globes of pure arcane force melted straight through the zombie's flesh and bone alike, disrupting the already tenuous spells that bound it together and sending it into a rapidly decaying crumpled heap on the ground. More had surrounded her, their claw-thin bony hands grasping at her, so she swung the orbs around her like the head of a flail. Each enemy she touched crumbled to dust but they kept coming. There was only so long she could hold her shield before she psychically exhausted herself or lost her nerve. Her old instincts were fighting for control.

A piercing screech of frustration sounded through the air, almost making her jump. Instead of letting the shield fall, she reacted by whirling the globes even faster and more aggressively. The sound was Scythe getting angry. That meant she was in trouble. Although a lot of the dragons had fallen, somehow slain with a single swipe of the dark witch's sharp nails, they were overcoming her defences with sheer number, size and ferocity. There were a lot less of them now, though, so few that Teiris could actually see Scythe, bloodied and enraged beyond all sensibility, in the thick of the fray. The battle wasn't going to last much longer, but it wasn't clear who would win. If it came down to a personal duel, Teiris didn't fancy her chances, even with Scythe badly wounded. She knew that she needed to take more initiative, to prevent it from reaching that stage.

She only knew one useful spell for attacking an enemy General directly. Unlike Reinhart, she was better at summoning than drawing upon her personal reserves of energy. Of the spirits she had managed to make contracts with and the planes of existence she had managed to tap into, only the Wyvern was really worth summoning on the field. Slapping away one last zombie who had spotted her concentration wavering and tried to strike when she was distracted, she then lifted the orbs into a triangular pattern high in the air, to provide a portal for the wyvern to enter the mortal plane through. As she chanted the legendary beast's true name in the ancient language of the Immortals, she let the last of her psychic energy flow into the spell. A rift of swirling, cracking energy, the barrier between worlds torn open, appeared between the spheres and a sinuous scaled figure shot out, calling out a cry like a bird of prey. Then it darted for Scythe, swooping over the battlefield. Flames poured out of its mouth to engulf the Dark Apostle and the remainder of the troops guarding her, then it grabbed her in its talons and tried to lift her off the ground, tearing into her flesh with its beak. 

The first of the zombies had managed to get through Teiris' shield, its vile claws raking across her face before she managed to smack it solidly in the head, her mystically reinforced strike smashing its skull. She sent the spheres behind her, hoping that they could cover her blind spot and that she was actually aiming them in the right direction. She was losing power to her blows now that her psychic energy was fading from her; the wyvern had disappeared, now that there wasn't enough energy to bind it to the world. She wondered if she should just try and retreat. It was better than dying here - maybe some of the others still had strength left to fight, and could do a better job at it than her. It meant they still thought of her as a liability, an unfortunate case of someone being destined to do something they weren't actually capable of, and Junon might be angry and refuse to give her Kingdom back when this was over, but it was a problem she could fix eventually, which her death wasn't. If she conserved her energy and started moving now, she could just about manage a safe retreat.

Then, all at once, the zombies returned to dust, their animating force removed entirely. With a final screech, Scythe had fallen to one of the remaining dragons. Teiris saw the swipe of the claw land and the Dark Apostle collapse to the ground. Then there was a blinding flash of white light and Scythe was gone, leaving seven confused-looking dragons to mill around, hovering back and forth in random directions as they looked for their vanished prey. She had escaped again, no doubt to report back to Madruk. Teiris was still alive, though, and she had won the battle. Alone with the scant remnants of her force, in the middle of a forest clearing full of demolished trees, small fires, corpses and piles of dessicated zombies, she allowed herself to sink to her knees.

"Teiris! Gongos has brought a present for you!" The Beastman came crashing out from behind a tree, brandishing a severed dragonman head. Reinhart soon followed. He frowned as he glanced at the fires, then began putting them out with water elemental spells. As soon as she got her breath back, Teiris gave her own report on the battle. 

"It looks like it was a close one, but I'm impressed. Scythe is a formidable foe, and it sounds like her powers are growing with Madruk's immanent return," said Reinhart.

"I knew that the Elf Queen was strong enough to be a Beastman's wife! Yes!" Gongos told her, still trying to push the dragonman head into her hands. 

"We're going to have to fight her again, aren't we? But she'll be even stronger," said Teiris, "And I might even have to face Madruk. I don't even want to know what he actually looks like, never mind how powerful he is. I've had it up to here with these battles. Can we rejoin the others yet?"

"We still have to enter the shrine," said Reinhart, "And we have no idea what the others are doing. We don't know if it's something that we can safely interfere with. We weren't invited to it, after all."

"Gongos will fetch a better present for Teiris from the shrine!" declared Gongos, before loping off towards the terraced marble steps of the ancient, vine-covered forest shrine.


	7. Reunion

Hooves thundered across the cracked, moss-covered tiles of the shrine, its serene silence broken by the chaos of war as two hundred-strong units of cavalry charged at each other across the outer courtyard. It had been fortunate for them both that the temple had been large enough to fight, as a mass battle on the treacherous slopes of Tristan's mountain ranges would have been hell. Wein imagined that Goldark had probably known this in advance and his enemy, having chosen the time and place to meet him, almost certainly did.

Not only had Goldark and Gyzzdark taken similar units to the battlefield, Wein quickly saw that the brothers used very similar tactics. Goldark had probably trained alongside his older brother, although it was impossible to tell who had been the best student, as Gyzzdark no longer fought like a human being at all. The Crazy Lion was also roaring at the top of his voice as he led the full frontal assault, swinging his swords above his head, but he looked calm and sane next to his brother's frenzy. He also had a dark aura so vast and deep, like a mire that threatened to drag in the souls of all around him, that even Wein, who wasn't very good at anything magical, could sense it. He was clearly no longer alive - his skin had turned the grey-green of a corpse, his lank hair drained of all colour, his red eyes animated by something other than a soul. 

Gyzzdark had recognised his brother, but only as a particularly dangerous enemy who needed to be eliminated right away, a task his twisted mind seemed to relish the thought of. It was hard to read past Goldark's usual mask of determination to gauge his reaction to meeting his brother face-to-face for the first time in such a scenario. He certainly hadn't held back. Throwing out Sonic Boom after Sonic Boom toward the rippling mass of the enemy, the blades of force from his magically charged sword carving out a bloody path between himself and his brother, he ran forwards and launched into a Sword Rush that took him flying into Gyzzdark, his swords a blur of movement. Taken by surprise, Gyzzdark still didn't fall, but only stepped backwards, bringing around his own sword to parry the rain of blows. He was a few seconds late and several of the swings still connected, Goldark's strength sending them through Gyzzdark's plate mail, but the wounds didn't seem to slow him down or even elicit a reaction at all. 

Wein saw Gyzzdark's blade pulsate with the same dark energy and realised that it had been coming from the sword all along; Eclisis, the dread blade, was the only thing keeping Goldark's brother alive at all. Its inhuman evil had wholly consumed him, just as it had destroyed Zanon and tried to do the same to Goldark. That same willpower, the willpower that drove him to exist in the middle of all the evil in Legendra and not lose himself to it, shone through again in Goldark as he continued battling his brother. 

As Wein watched the duel unfold, he started to wonder if either of them could actually die at all. They struck each other with blows that would have killed Wein, neither appearing to tire, both of them matching the dark tales Wein had heard told about them. He now knew, or at least, he thought he knew, that the Fandarian Emperor was mortal, could fall like anyone else, but sometimes he wasn't quite sure if Goldark had just allowed himself to be defeated momentarily because it suited his own purposes. Quite suddenly, or at least, after a change Wein didn't understand, Gyzzdark stopped moving and sank to his knees. With one blade still pointed at his brother's head, Goldark peered around. The two armies were still fighting all around him but, now that their leader had fallen, Gyzzdark's troops were losing their morale. They didn't retreat - for all Wein knew, they were somehow soulbound to the dread warrior - but they also seemed to slow down. Gyzzdark was about to die - that much was certain - but Wein saw another change pass through him, too. His eyes were returning to normal. He was fighting the blade's pull. The shock of being so close to death had given him the impetus he needed to shake off the possession. 

After checking again that nobody was about to stab him in the back, Goldark knelt down so that he was face to face with his brother, then whispered something to him in a surprisingly gentle voice. They exchanged a few words that Wein couldn't hear. Goldark looked concerned and rather puzzled, then a soft sadness spread across his face as he nodded his head in agreement, then stabbed Gyzzdark through the chest. The sword fell from his brother's hand and clattered to the ground. 

Wein wasn't sure what happened after that. There had been a bright light, Gyzzdark's body was gone and so was the blade. The battlefield was deserted. When Goldark caught up with him, he explained that his brother's soul was at peace now. He wasn't sure what had happened to the sword, which was worrying, but there wasn't anything they could do about it without abandoning their other duty. He told Wein to go into the Shrine to claim the Star Sword; such rewards weren't for him. Wein suspected that Junon would end up with the sword - it made more sense, as she was the one fighting Madruk - but Goldark just shrugged at this. 

On the way back, Goldark walked as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he didn't have that crazed look in his eyes as though he was staring at something nobody else could see.


	8. The Third Apostle

When they met up again, they found that Junon had recovered the third relic, the Moon Cane, and that it had been given to Reinhart. Inevitably, they had been attacked by Gaul and two supporting units of dragonmen. Demonstrating a terrifying ability to deal with dragons that made Junon suspect that the original homeland of the Izumo tribe was actually the plane of existence where dragonmen were sealed, Mikhal had dealt with these distractions while Junon led a crushing assault on the evil sorcerer's army of battle mages. While it had been as exhausting a battle as Reinhart predicted, Junon didn't really have any tales to tell, other than those she wished to keep private. She listened with patience to Teiris' slightly hyperactive retelling of her own victory, with frequent interjections from Gongos to reinforce just how goddess-like the Elf Queen had apparently seemed on the battlefield. She had to admit she was impressed at how far Teiris had come, when she remembered how difficult it had been at first to keep her alive long enough to give her the combat experience she so badly needed. When she learned that Wein was home, and that he was injured, Teiris ran off to fuss over him. Reinhart suggested to Gongos that he needed to go away, have a bath and not try to interrupt Teiris and Wein, so that the God-Child could give a coherent account of the story. Junon also heard Goldark's story, which brought down her mood after the news of their unanimous victories had lifted her spirits. She told him that Eclisis had been taken to her by Faust, probably straight after Goldark's battle, and she had been presented with its temptation again. After refusing, Faust tried to stab her with the evil sword, but she was saved by the Dragon Power that she inherited. She commiserated Goldark on the loss of his brother, then promised to honour his name in the ceremony to acknowledge their victory. Of course, there would be a proper ceremony at some other time, but that would be in Fandaria, using whatever ritual Fandarians used to honour their favourite Emperors, and she didn't want to interfere. Besides, she didn't have time to dwell too much on the past. She knew for certain, now, that the dragons had fully returned to the world. Their dimensional rift had opened up somewhere in the stars, possibly the same place that Katmando came from, and they could reach anywhere in Legendra on their scaled wings. Junon had to be ready for attacks on all fronts. She wouldn't survive the assault if she tried to face them head on, either; she didn't even know if there was a finite number of them. The only thing she could do was set off straight away to Madruk's lair, lead the Dragon Warriors to their destined final battle.

Just outside the gates of Fandaria, on her way to Ruinledge, she first found out that her other prediction had come true. Katmando had begun moving again. The scouts reported that it was heading towards Junon using the shortest path, and that nobody who tried to stop it had survived – it was still impossible to damage. Frest had come to her in a private audience and told her that it was up to her to destroy it. The true power of the Dragon Force was literally the only thing that could get through its shields. Junon wondered what kind of power the Dragon Force would have to be in order to specifically be able to damage an unimaginably advanced machine, and what had been the history of Legendra that its Gods came into contact with something as bizarre as Katmando. She agreed to Frest's plan and met the machine halfway.

The battle went strangely and was over quickly. Junon had expected the Dragon Force to manifest as a magical attack that would do a lot of damage to the machine, as it did with everything else she tested it out on. Instead, the mere existence of the divine power seemed to be enough to do the damage. As the malevolent machine swept away the troops Junon sent out with its giant steel arms that sent out bolts of light, it seemed to almost damage itself by being in contact with a source of the Dragon Force. Eventually, it shuddered and stopped, sparks running across its armoured frame, then it dropped out of the sky. As Junon ran in for the kill, still unsure as to what constituted killing it and how one would go about it, it disappeared. It was gone from the battlefield, in the same flash of light that heralded Gaul and Scythe's retreat. It had gone to the same place, to Madruk's lair. Whatever it was, Katmando counted as an apostle of Madruk. 

After replenishing from the battle, Junon carried on to Ruinledge. The barrier over the cursed mountain was already lifted by the same force that allowed the dragonmen back into the world, but it had instead allowed the Dragon Warriors into Madruk's own domain, to stop him before he fully entered Legendra. Finally, the time had come when it was possible to stop him for good. Everyone had suffered because of an act committed by Madruk, because of his malign influence, and it was now time to end the cycle of suffering. 

Junon drew her sword and stepped into the darkness of the cave mouth.


End file.
